LPG Conversion discussion thread.

80 litres x 65p = £52 to totally fill up on lpg.
80 litres x £1.36 = £108.80 for the same amount in petrol prices.

So yes, you have to 'shop around' Mal. 80 litres x 15p = £1200 a tank saved. Follow a taxi and you'll soon find where the best places are.

Leigh Ping wrote: ....I'll try to make this as simple as I can.. In 6 months, check my fuelly signature below, the car has covered 7700 miles approximately for a cost of £936.90.

At 65p a litre locally for LPG and the local cost of petrol at £1.36. So, I pay 52% less for fuel using lpg daily. Now, I believe that it gives me 10% less power and range than petrol. Feel free to work it out better than me if you're a mathematical genius. But roughly though I have used 1441 litres of lpg to cover that distance.

So 1441 litres of lpg cost me a rough £939.90, converting that to petrol costs at £1.36 a litre it amounts to £1959.76. The difference is £1019.86. Already a fuel saving of a grand which can go towards a new head gasket when it's need.

I think there are a couple of things you've overlooked in your calculation above :dry: .

LPG
1441 litres of LPG to cover 7700 miles at 65p a litre = £936.65

Now, assuming £1.36 a litre for unleaded (bit more expensive than where I live which is £1.32 /l today). Real world figures for a TF 135 put the average mpg at 35. On a long run you can easily get this figure to above 40mpg but for an average and as I say a real world figure, as quoted by users, we'll use 35.

Petrol
7700 miles / 35 hence you need 213.88 gallons of unleaded. Since there are 4.546 litres to every gallon, thus you need 972.29 litres of unleaded (at £1.36) = £1322.31

Thus the difference is £1322.31 - £936.65 = £386.66 and not as you stated £1019.86

Your calculation also does not give the amount you spent on unleaded which you use some of, a relatively small amount I realise, but this none the less reduces the difference even further.

This aside, the main things which would most put me off the conversion would be; the high initial cost, the effect an 80 litre tank full of LPG in the boot has to have on handling, the drop in performance and the loss of my boot :omg:
I do take the point that a tank could be put in the spare wheel space, but this still has to have an adverse effect on handling. Our cars were never designed to have large tank and 80 litres of fuel up front or hung out behind the rear wheels. Plus, call me old fashioned, I like having a spare wheel available to use when you get a puncture in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night.

I love my MGF and being able to put a shopping trolley full of groceries in the boot makes the chore bearable, so having an 80 litre tank in there would make such trips impossible. Going away for the weekend would also not be as comfortable as you would need to fill every other available space to make up for the loss of your boot space.

LPG conversions when you own a very thirsty large car or 4x4 and you do a high mileage :yesnod: . For a little sporty fun car that doesn't do lots of miles :nonod:

Different cars, different mileages, different area costs will give you different cost calculations of course. I worked my rough calculations out based on 65p a litre for lpg and the local cost of £1.36 for a litre of petrol. I did mention that they were rough. Anyway, the difference between 65p a litre of lpg and £1.** for petrol is more than enough to pay for the conversion if you do enough miles eventually. The 'high initial cost' isn't as high as it once was either. The chap I bought my car off paid £1800. Mal said it now costs (around) £618 for a good kit. So, around a third of what it used to be.

Facts and figures aside. It is a huge difference currently, especially if you're a commuter. No matter which way you cut up the pie chart. Let's just all agree that lpg is much cheaper than petrol, for the sake of simplicity, and that saving passes directly to the person running the car.

Handling.
I also had those concerns at first. It's no different than having shopping in the boot or a weekend case or bag. What does 80 litres and a tank weigh? 10 stone? Anyway, It has no effect that I've detected. Rayb commented on how well the car handles when it's thrown around. I would go so far as to say that it seems to 'plant' the rear end more firmly on the tarmac.

Our cars were never designed to have large tank and 80 litres of fuel up front or hung out behind the rear wheels.

They were designed with those weighted areas in mind though. Boots are meant for filling. Bonnets carry heavy spare wheels and a tyre jack.

Shopping.
I've a shopping car for that. However the TF still took two adults, their camping gear, clothes, and other bits and bobs around europe adeqately without issue. That was with two full tanks too.

Spare wheel.
Removed - Handling is not an issue (and you can get all your shopping in the front). Replacing the spare wheel with a wheel shaped lpg tank would also create no real difference in handling that I can see. Otherwise we wouldn't be doing it. The spare wheel weighs as much as 16kg I believe. Flat tyre = tyre foam or recovery, worst case. We're not in a third world country and they just don't happen that often. In fact many new cars don't even have a spare wheel as standard nowadays.

How far.
Another factor for the calculations is with 130 litres / 28.5 gallons of fuel onboard. How far can I go realistically? I worked it out as 'Birmingham to Scotland and back for a tenner'.


Seriously though, I reckon that I could do this 'return journey' of 360 miles each way with ease on just one 'fill up'.

In terms of handling with a fuel tank in the front, the F handled pretty well, regardless of the tank being full or empty, and to be honest I've not noticed much difference between the F with a tank in the front and the TF with spare wheel and jack. The old F handled pretty well and was comparable to another F I had looked at a month earlier which had no modifications at all.

In short, power loss is negligible, As is any change in handling, at least in my experience.

Just found this site, offering LPG conversions for under £900 for 4 cylinder cars such as the MG's

http://www.leedslpg.co.uk/?gclid=CJeukOnA-K0CFUYLtAodGAsKuQ

Long time lurker, first time poster...

I've recently scrapped my Metro to an MGTF and I transferred my LPG kit across to my TF.

I've had to ditch the 85l cylinder tank I had in the boot of the Metro (600 mile range!) and go for a more modest 40l cylinder tank which is in the sparewheel well area:



EDIT: Dont be fooled by the invisible tank - that was a mockup to check tanks sizes! It's all in and running now!

Hi quick_spider welcome to the forum

Hi and welcome Spider.

Plenty photos if you can please mate? Or start your own album. That would be great. Could be a good showcase and interesting guide that we'd like to have here. I'd certainly like to know how you did it for one.

600 miles range is awesome. Shame you had to do it in a metro :ohmy: Which one? I've had three myself over the years. No wonder it sold 1,370,000 units.

Nice to have you onboard at long last. Better late than never though. :broon:

Hello Quick_Spider and a big welcome to the forum. Congratulations on getting a MGF (most of it was Metro anyway) ask any questions yo wish :yesnod:

bryan young wrote: Hello Quick_Spider and a big welcome to the forum. Congratulations on getting a MGF (most of it was Metro anyway) ask any questions yo wish :yesnod:

Just don't ask me, I don't do dirty :nonod:
Welcome :yesnod:

quick_spider wrote: Long time lurker, first time poster...

I've recently scrapped my Metro to an MGTF and I transferred my LPG kit across to my TF.

I've had to ditch the 85l cylinder tank I had in the boot of the Metro (600 mile range!) and go for a more modest 40l cylinder tank which is in the sparewheel well area:

Dont be fooled by the invisible tank - that was a mockup to check tanks sizes! It's all in and running now!

Hi and welcome Spider.

Plenty photos if you can please mate? Or start your own album. That would be great. Could be a good showcase and interesting guide that we'd like to have here. I'd certainly like to know how you did it for one.

600 miles range is awesome. Shame you had to do it in a metro :ohmy: Which one? I've had three myself over the years. No wonder it sold 1,370,000 units.

Nice to have you onboard at long last. Better late than never though. :broon:

Out of interest, what kind of milage where you doing in the metro?

Metro wasn't so bad as it had a few tweaks, as most of the bits on it were robbed from MGF/TFs.

I've kept the engine and gearbox for my TF as it was rather special - Scholar 1900

Pictures here